D&D 5E 5th edition stat-block concern: Saving throws

[KarinsDad]

To me...the question here isn't the time spent, it is the mental impact to the DM.

During a busy combat, DMs are....very busy! You are tracking 5-10 monsters, adjudicating effects, looking up spells, recording damage, maybe you have some terrain effects, etc etc.

I can say that when I run combats like that...it is easy to forget the small things. Little bonuses here and there, etc.


So, does looking for save bonuses in multiple places have a mental impact? I think it does. In fact more likely than not what would happen to me is I get used to look at ability scores for saves...and forget about the save bonuses entirely.

Once again I will state...is this a BIG deal? Probably not...but I do agree it could have been done even better.

I personally think that after getting burnt a few times (if this is a problem for some DMs), most DMs will make this automatic and will probably not even think about it.

However, I do agree with you that they could have easily made it better. For example:

  STR      DEX      CON         INT      WIS      CHA
10 (+0)  10 (+0)  10 (+0/+2)  10 (+0)  14 (+2)  11 (+0)

where the first number under CON is the modifier and the second number is the save.

 

[beej]

As a personal preference, +X/+Y feels like it will give me a .5 second delay ("saves are higher, saves are higher, need to remember"), whereas an extra row with the label "saving throws" won't. I guess it's because I work with spreadsheets all day? I dunno.

I feel like this is a big case of YMMV.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Looks like another case where a conscious simplification turned into a needless complication.

The idea was not to have to worry about saves or skills or perception checks or a lot of other things and /just roll stats/.

The playtest tried a lot of things to let PCs scale a little without bounded accuracy - MMDs, Skill Dice, +1-3 bonuses for leveling for certain things - what it settled on was proficiency, at +2-6 over 20 levels. Because it's not a blanket bonus just for being a certain level, it's put back in the 'complexity' of saves and skills (and broken down skills between skills and tools, for some reason).

Also throwing some straws on the needless complication scale is using two mathematically-identical but mechanically distinct resolution methods for attacks, resulting in you needing to 'look for saves' in the first place, rather than have an AC line with AC, touch AC, etc.

 

[Starfox]

To me, the iddue is "do we need different save categories?". That sems like unneded layering to me. Its nice when you can use stats directly, sometimes a stat modifier might be needed, but additional layering betond that seems superflous.

And yes, Ive not played or even read the gane yrt, this is more of a general observation.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Perhaps it is more of a problem of 'we haven't done this a lot yet'. Maybe it WILL prove to be more intuitive as we use it more. Who knows?

In any case, aren't skills done this way? When we get used to looking for Saves like Skills, maybe it will work out?

Also, I think it is fine listing it where it is. That is where you look for ALL defense stuff. So you look at that section first when a monster is the target of ANY attack, as there may also be resistances etc. Putting them together seems right.

OTOH, maybe ALL info aligned to an Ability Score could have gone with the Ability score? Like PCs? That is how I have done my PC sheet too.

eg:
STR: 10 (+0)
DEX: 14 (+2): Saves +4, Acrobatics +4
INT: 14 (+2): Saves +4, Arcana +4

etc \m/

 

[Li Shenron]

I would have been fine with either approach, even if a monster's entry only had a "Proficiency bonus = X", because in 5e the vast majority of times you are just rolling d20 + stat bonus + proficiency bonus, and while there are still 6 stat bonuses, there is only one proficiency bonus to rule them all.

So in a sense, it's not even necessary to put any saving throw, attack, or skill total bonus in a monster's stat block, unless it has a unique additional bonus/penalty.

Of course on one hand, having the total bonus written and ready-to-use is useful. On the other hand, listing all skills for example is a bit annoying considering they won't get used too often.